Smashing Magazine: Women in Web Design

July 20, 2010

I don’t think I mentioned the interview I did with Smashing Magazine for their Women in Web Design: Group Interview. They published it at the end of May of this year, and I’m listed there, with a group of 15 other female designers who are all making the web a pretty place to be! I’m super honored to be listed among that group of fine ladies — and have to say, a little tickled pink to have been asked since I’ve been a raving fan of Smashing Magazine for quite some time!

Here’s a listing ladies that I had the pleasure of sharing company with in the Smashing interview:

Click over and have a read! They didn’t post each interview in one big chunk – but rather, took snippets from all of our answers to their questions and presented them all together in sections… so in order to read my answers, you kinda have to read the whole thing.

Ok, so don’t get mad at me but… I’m a guy and I still wouldn’t feel comfortable hiring a woman as my web designer. Maybe I’m being old fashioned and perhaps even ignorant – I admit – because I’d expect the whole website would be pink with flowers all over it. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, it’s just, er, not suitable for most sites I still like your site though Lisa.

Bistro’s analysis is too general, as it applies to heterosexual women only. And he certainly should have added gay men to the list of people he wouldn’t hire for the very same reason.

Lesbians generally do not shy away from using strong colors. It’s a fact. (If I search long enough, I’m sure I’ll find some evidence to back me up on this.)

Check out the Windows Live Mail color scheme, for instance. All pastel shades. You can use the custom color feature all you want, no matter what color you pick, the program turns it into its pastel version. Drives me crazy. No idea whether the person who designed this thing was male or female, but it certainly wasn’t someone who has ever watched the Super Bowl with a beer in his or her hand.

Thankyou for your concern Lisa you are very kind Cyberquill you make a great point about lesbians, I’m certainly not against hiring them.

At the end of the day, when hiring, it’s your money, and if you’re not 100% confident they are going to do the job to your satisfaction, then you reserve the right to hire someone else. Hire who you want. If you don’t want to hire a woman for whatever reason, don’t. If you don’t want to hire a man, don’t. It all depends on your goals. All male basketball teams don’t hire women to play for them, that would just be ridiculous. I don’t see why it should be any different for web design, or any other, erm, male dominated arena.

That said, I prefer to hire female writers. Make of that what you will. It’s just preference. I’m not prejudiced I love women !

Well, I can’t help myself. So I have to comment here. Bistro, some of the best web designers I know are women. To hold such a narrow view one only limits their available resources.

What I have found is this. If you are getting pink as your results working with a woman, I blame the client. As a client, you have to communicate what you want. Expecting a web designer, either male or female, guess what you want is not going to work.

So, open you mind to the possibilities of working with a woman. You just might get what you are looking for.

Thank you, Vlad. When I started in design, almost ALL the designers I knew and associated with were women. As I grew in the industry – I was always shocked when people would ask thinks like “What challenges do you face as a woman in design?”

Those kinds of questions always (and still) throw me. I never really considered design to be ‘male dominated’ – – is it just me?

Lisa, I just came across your blog and love it. Working in our web design team, I am the only girl and basically the only girl in the whole IT department. Can’t blame them, we hardly ever get resumes from females.

Agree with Vlad although there are some intrinsic qualities that each gender can bring to the table depending on what the website is about, mainly due to a possible interest in the content matter. E.g. a florists website compared to a mechanics website. If well briefed the output should be good… but the additional edge can be gained by someone with a personal interest in the content matter of the website.

But being a designer myself, this is one reason why I particularly avoid using pink color in any of my designs. Because at the end people say ‘It’s a girlish design’ and my team turn up to me and giggle. I do not want that happening